Am Sam, 2003-08-02 um 12.47 schrieb GÃran Uddeborg:
> Gerald Henriksen writes:
> > On 02 Aug 2003 03:46:37 +0200, you wrote:
> >
> > >> Keep in mind that Mandrake is a French company and patent software don't
> > >> apply in France.
> > >
> > >so patent violations can't get inforced in france, am i getting you
> > >right? i would be surprised if it's the same in germany, nevertheless
> >
> > Patent laws vary from country to country, and the tolerance for risk
> > can also vary from company to company.
>
> If we want to be strict: Patent violations can surely be managed by
> French courts, I'm sure. What is less clear is WHERE there are
> patents for WHAT. If there IS a patent on MP3 valid in France, for
> example.
i thought that patents can be enforced everywhere in the (western) world
and i'm also quite sure that fraunhofer has filed patents for mp3
wherever possible (just my guess), but as someone pointed out, there
might be a silent agreement between fraunhofer (or whoever owns the
mp3-patents) and at least suse (and/or mandrake) so that both distros
might distribute it without paying royalties (i guess fraunhofer might
concentrate on collection royalties on hardware as well as
softwareencoders which they can only do when there's a huge userbase).
red hat seems to be shy of that unclear situation.
> ("Enforcing a patent violation" isn't correct, is it? I would have
> thought it is the patent which is enforced, not the violation. But
> English is a strange language, so one never knows.)
i guess you're correct, at least that's what i meant (but i was already
tired!). sorry for may being confusing!
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